An everyman's guide to press bias

By Paul Waggoner

Saturday

Feb 10, 2018 at 1:01 AMFeb 13, 2018 at 9:44 AM

The news media as a whole has a plethora of problems. The internet and growth of online media outlets, declining print readership and ad spending, along with industry consolidations are all real headaches.

But the greatest is the lack of public trust. The percent of the American public, according to Gallup, who have even a “fair amount” of trust in the press dropped to a record low of 32% in 2016 (it was even lower for Republicans and adults 49 or younger).

This lack of trust in the press often is tied to the perception of press bias.

As a writer on the editorial page, I am free to show my bias. I do analysis. That’s what an opinion page is for.

But many of you, myself included, are appropriately disillusioned if you go to someone's news pages and read articles by the Associated Press (or others) that seem more like editorials, with illustrations, or at the very least “news analysis,” rather than straight news.

Some professional press people get very sensitive about claims of “press bias,” but I think such sensitivity is misplaced. Bias is inevitable, and it is better to acknowledge it than become defensive.

I read pretty widely and have a simple model to gauge bias in news stories. First, read an article about some topic in an actual journal of opinion. For conservatives, you’d read the National Review, the Weekly Standard, or the Daily Caller. The corresponding liberal news outlets might be the New Republic, The Nation, or the Huffington Post.

Then read on the same topic what an AP news article (or Reuters, or Washington Post) has to say and see if they cut it fairly down the middle or does it sound suspiciously like what an “opinionated” journal has had to say. It’s a great way to red flag biased articles.

Another method I use to check bias is how the press reports an event in which I was in attendance. I have been to hearings or council meetings where the press report matched the reality of what I saw and heard. I was impressed.

Other times, not so much. And other times, I wonder if myself and said reporter were even living on the same planet!

I have heard the same critique from local political figures who deal with the media regularly. Some journalists they respect, others they just don’t trust. It could be journalistic bias, or maybe it is just sloppiness. But you have to be at the event to check media validity with this approach.

The first serious research on national press culture and bias was the 1986 book "The Media Elites" by Stanley Rothman and Robert Lichter. It detailed the political and cultural beliefs of 238 leading journalists in the print and news media.

It was astonishing in a negative way. While the nation voted overwhelmingly for Nixon in 1972, top media figures went 81% for liberal Democrat George McGovern. This press landslide was repeated for Carter and Mondale and Dukakis with later studies showing a full 90% of media figures supporting Bill Clinton in 1992. The Obama years were likewise lopsided.

The research of Rothman and Lichter highlighted the fact that notions of a left-wing press “conspiracy” were misplaced. It was the press culture that was the problem. Any of us would agree that a corporate environment that was politically monolithic could not help but present a distorted reality.

Ken Sterns, former CEO of National Public Radio told the New York Post recently “when you are liberal, and everyone else around you is as well, it is easy to fall into groupthink”.

Stern said this effected ideas even about what stories are legitimate or worthy of coverage.

The Politico did a recent piece “The Media Bubble is Worse Than You Think” which highlighted the related problem that remaining old-line media and upcoming new media are increasingly headquartered in cities that lack any political diversity.

When 80-90% of voters in your New York City, Washington or Seattle neighborhood have yard signs for Hillary Clinton how would that not effect what you think is of news or political/cultural significance?

All Americans have a vested interest in a free and vital press. We can survive “fake news” if there remains a press culture that genuinely separates fact from fiction, hard news from analysis.

Trust needs to be restored for the Fourth Estate to thrive. Trust, once lost, is hard to make right. Whether the established American, even Kansas, media is up to this task remains to be seen.

Paul Waggoner is a Hutchinson resident and business owner. He can be reached with comments at waggonerpm@gmail.com.

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